So I’m on a cruise with my best friend

So I’m on a cruise with my best friend. I’ve known Heather since junior year of high school. Forty-one fabulous years. How can it all be fabulous? Because we are still friends, best friends. Every step of those forty-one years, the ups, the downs, even the gaps, have moved us along in our life journeys, and now here we are, on a cruise together.

It is day two. We boarded yesterday with the bleak rain of an aberrant summer squall seeming to chase us from the shore. It was glorious! The rain washed decks glistened in the timid sunshine as we left the shoreline behind us and forged ahead towards the Caribbean. Destination – Haiti and Jamaica, but that is tomorrow. Today is sunshine, a balmy breeze, laughter and the splash of the pool.

There is nothing quite like yoga in the open air at sunrise. The aft (rear) section of the boat shimmies like a hula girl under bare feet, so I went to the front (fore for you nautical types). I found a nice niche on the 12th floor next to the jogging track. Yoga, and meditation, in peace and quiet is for sissies. Centering happens under the watchful eye of distractions. Centering happens when the irritations of the world are folded in to become the natural rhythm of life, the back beat to which you can dance and revel.

With that in mind, I inhaled to the thunder of sneakers on the jogging track, exhaled under the curious gaze of passing fellow passengers. It was amazing! My practice has changed over the years. I no longer treat yoga as an athletic feat, I use my practice to nurture my physical, emotional and mental well being. I’m addicted to the smile that warms my lips as I move through the poses. I find it liberating to turn myself over to the part of me that knows what poses I need that day. The mind is a taskmaster; the soul is gentle, loving. It knows and it nurtures.

It is fun to tackle tree pose (imagine standing like a flamingo) with the rumble of the boat seeping up through your toes, hands pressed together in prayer as the sun slides up over the bow of the boat to kiss your face good morning. Precious moments, ones that smooth away the worry lines of work, family and life. Precious moments that a camera can never capture, that are held in the heart to carry me through the day.

Yes, that is what life is all about, precious moments. So here I am, on a cruise with my best friend, missing my husband, but loving him intensely for giving me this priceless opportunity for some girl time with my bestie.